Tiles - Feedback please

capone

Had a go at my own tiles after going through a tutorial by Kyle Horwood. This is very much WIP, I want to revisit it and try to improve it. Right now my main concerns that I'm aware of are;

- Roughness is off, tile shine doesn't feel right. A bit too flat.
- I've tried separating the shapes a little but the way they are painted doesn't seem natural enough. I've tried giving those shapes normals and eroding the patterns but it's not enough

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1l9XX

acealmighty13

I'm not too sure what you're using for your roughness but try mixing up your details in that roughness map.  I like to start with working on the overall roughness or larger details first.  Normally I work with one of the Clouds nodes, maybe a Grunge or a combination of both blended together to my liking and add a Blur node at the end and play with that setting until I'm happy with the result.  Slowly adding smaller details for either a more glossy detail or a rough detail. 

With that said, you have something here.  It looks good.  Keep playing with it.  Tweaking it.  I'll sometimes add a couple of extra nodes to control the roughness values with only a slider or two in engine, if I'm not too super happy with it but I feel it's complete at the same time.  Play with the Free Rotation Node in the Tile Generator node you're using to create this pattern as well, might help as well make the tiles feel more naturally placed.

capone

Great idea, thanks. Agree I need to evaluate the roughness at a more general layer, I do have a lot of things going on with the roughness but clearly am not making the most of it. I find it a bit confusing how the roughness/lighting acts differently in Designer and Toolbag but you've given me an idea, I'm going to take out all the extra things in my roughness and add a levels that is exposed at the end. Then in Toolbag adjust the slider until it looks right, make a note of the roughness map tones then go back to Designer, clear the expose and adjust my levels to match the tones that worked in Toolbag.

Perhaps I'm over complicating this process  

capone

I'm keeping my old versions on this same page just to see progress but the latest is always at the bottom. In this case 2nd one.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1l9XX

Happy with the progress, looks much more interesting now. 

However, I'm new to Toolbag. I don't think my scene setup is making the most of my work. In Substance it's easier to get light to spin around as it's a flat plane so I'm wondering if I should try it on a flat plane in Toolbag, it's just that I see a lot of high end Substance Designer users present their textures on cylinders so feel inclined to follow suit. Perhaps that's just for screenshots, I'll try a plane next time.

acealmighty13

It does look much better.  I still have trouble with Toolbag, using it more often might help.  Ha ha!  Keeping it up their for a progress is a good idea but once you finish the material, removing the previous versions of the material would be the way to go.  As of displaying materials, I've seen the cylinder often, also the plane mesh with angled screenshots to display the height and normal detail as well as roughness.  Cylinder for MT and Sketchfab purposes.

If I can't come up with a way to use a particular mask to add particular details within seconds, or a minute or two.  I keep trying to add to it, or make it more complicated, it's probably best that I stop there.  That's my thought process on adding details.  Or move on to something else in the file and come back to it later, an idea will pop soon enough.

capone

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/o830m

Thanks again for feedback. This session I added 

- more variation in tiles (different saturation/Lightness)

- New improved paint wear of various saturation

- Brought down the amount of eroded edges, they now don't go in as far

- Roughed up the actual edges of the tiles

- Using plane for presentation rather than cylinder.